


Repudiation

by morningstar115



Series: Break the Rules, Play to Win [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Character Death, Drama, Explicit Language, Family, Flashbacks, Friendship, Implied Sexual Content, Multi, Murder, Romance, Victors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2019-11-26 17:32:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18183638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morningstar115/pseuds/morningstar115
Summary: The Hunger Games are over and a revolution in the name of justice and freedom has begun. District Thirteen has reemerged. Throughout Panem, the districts and their Victors are ready for a war against the Capitol. And as messed up as they currently are, Dean Winchester of District Nine and Castiel Novak of District One are fighting, too...for revenge.On the other side of the continent, Sam and his unlikely rescuers have just been working to survive another day.





	1. Prologue

The hovercraft hanger was quiet, almost empty. Only one vehicle was being prepped for takeoff, and less than a dozen people were around.

The takeoff would be unheralded, inconspicuous, as would the two drop-offs the hovercraft would make.

Two trusted people, two sets of forged records, two names replacing all others in two separate glass bowls, and a destroyed Arena. Then the war would truly begin. At last.

_Flames swirled up the walls, consuming the house and everything in it. The screams of a woman mingled with the crying of a baby and young child, and beyond the smoke pouring into the street, a cackling laugh sounded._

_He could see the man, standing invulnerable in Peacekeeper white, his eyes flashing yellow in the light of the raging fire. He wanted to kill him, to tear him apart with his bare hands._

_But he couldn’t move, couldn’t leave the sobbing child or the wailing baby, couldn’t do anything but watch their home burn down._

A young woman walked past, unrecognizable to him if he didn’t already know who she was. The hundred tiny alterations to her face and the changing of her hair color rendered her a new person, a new self to go with her entirely new name. Such extreme measures hadn’t been necessary with the other operative.

It figured that choosing both had been a lottery, a random choice of names from a pool of volunteers. He still hated it.

“ _Why am I here, Mrs. President?”_

_She merely gestured at the screen, and someone hit a play button on the scene of yet another Reaping in District Nine. He didn’t understand what was so interesting about it until he heard the male tribute’s name read out, saw the teenager walking through the crowd, heard and saw the younger boy screaming and running towards his brother, being forced back by Peacekeepers._

_Devastation, rage, terror, hitting him like a physical blow. “This is my fault,” he whispered when someone paused the video. “I did this to them.”_

_The woman by his side said, “You can’t know that.”_

_But she was wrong. This had to be his fault._

He waited until she was mostly done saying goodbye, stepping back from a long embrace and wiping tears from her eyes. Then he approached, hesitant, unwilling to do this again. Except this would be different. This was planned.

_He’s too young_ , he thought was the eighteen-year-old gave him a small smile. _This is a waste. This is wrong. I shouldn’t allow this._

“Watch your back,” he said gruffly.

She sniffled, he refused to shed any tears, and their boy said, “I will. I promise. I’ll be back before you know it.”

_Sammy crying, Azazel laughing, Dean swinging a black blade downward._

John Winchester wrapped his arm around Kate and watched Adam disappear into the hovercraft, destined for a Hunger Games arena. He watched, and made a silent promise, like all the ones he’d never managed to fulfill before.

_Whether or not he comes back, I_ will _burn the Capitol down._

This time, at least, he knew he wouldn't be alone.


	2. We All Fall Down

One of the worst things about District Thirteen, in Dean’s opinion, was the lack of alcohol.

There were a lot of other crappy things about the place. It was ugly, it was underground, it was supposed to be dead approximately eighty years ago, it was where John Winchester had been hiding out for the last decade...Oh, and that whole thing about Adam not-Rosen being Dean’s Thirteen-native half-brother sucked, too, like those purple-inked “mandatory schedules”...but if he had enough alcohol, maybe all those other things wouldn’t be so unbearable. The Capitol, for all its faults, had always had plenty of free booze.

In Thirteen, everything was rationed, from clothes to food to hot water, and Dean was having a hard enough time holding it together without that shit.

Some people...Bobby, Jody, John, some doctor or other...had halfheartedly tried to get him to follow his schedule or even just leave his room more than once or less a day, but he ignored all of them, pretending everyone except Castiel didn’t exist.

_Cas is trying to keep me going, so I guess I owe him the same._

Other than that, he didn’t see the point of trying anymore.

_The Games are over, everyone else is fighting a war, and Sam’s...gone. No one trusted me, I failed anyway, and I just want a damn drink._

Cas was the only person who didn’t try to force him to eat regularly, or shower, or even move from the single bed in the cramped gray compartment he’d been assigned to once the hospital couldn’t find any more reasons to keep him. Day after day, Cas disregarded his own schedule and sat next to Dean through the alternating silence and rages. He had his own compartment, but ended up in Dean’s almost every night, sharing the too-small bed and not leaving even when Dean woke up screaming and thrashing hard enough to hurt someone.

The nights on which he didn’t show up were the ones during which Dean didn’t sleep at all.

He was no stranger to nightmares, to visions of his mother burning to death, to memories of the Sixty-Sixth Games, to twisted images of people he loved in the Arena. Those familiar terrors came now, but the worst was the sight of Sam falling, falling, _falling_.

After the chaos, there had been some searching, limited by resources and the bloody war erupting across the nation, and it hadn't been successful. Sam was gone, without even a body left to bury or burn.

Dean had watched _it_ happen and kept seeing it over and over again. Sam had somehow put together the pieces of Thirteen’s undercover force-field-destruction plot and tackled Lucifer over the edge of a cliff to stop him from interrupting it.

Waking up and realizing that was the last time he’d see his brother left Dean... _empty_. If he were at home, in the Victor’s Village house he’d never admit that he loved, he’d have drained all the alcohol bottles by now and probably broken into Bobby’s place to raid the older man’s stash. He’d have sobered up a few times and took a long drive or three through the farm sectors in the sleek black car he sometimes called “Baby” and washed once a week as long as he was at home. Then he’d have gone back to the house and started all over again.

But for all he knew, that house had burned to the ground and that car had been destroyed in one of the Capitol’s scattered bombings of districts Four, Eight, and Nine. Those had been locations of the most post-Game unrest, though Five, Seven, Ten, and Eleven were openly rebelling, too. Dean only knew that because Cas had mentioned it once or twice.

Bobby and Jody tried to discuss those things, too, or so he thought whenever they showed up looking like crap in Thirteen’s boring gray uniforms. He’d turn away, tune them out, and they’d eventually leave. John had been even more persistent, until Dean finally snapped and punched him in the face. That had been back in the hospital, which was lucky as the action, which could've meant serious disciplinary action, had been passed off as “mental instability warranting a couple more days of medical observation”.

That had been weeks ago. Dean wasn’t sure how long they’d been in Thirteen altogether. The days seemed to blur together, like this one.

“Dean.”

Cas stood in the doorway, so Dean sat up on the bed and swung his legs over the side. “Hey, Cas. What time is it?”

“Almost six in the evening.” Carrying what looked like a computer tablet, Cas walked over and sat down next to Dean. “A number of rebel refugees arrived today. From District One.”

_His district._ “Huh. Any...any important news for you?” _Why would there be?_

Castiel Novak didn’t have many friends, and had gone into Career training early on due to pressure from his family. Not many people knew that after the Games, Cas had cut all ties with said family and refused to acknowledge any relation of his except his cousin Gabriel, who had turned his back on their wealthy, influential relatives years previous. _And Gabriel died in the Arena, so…_

“Nothing specific about my parents or other relations,” Cas said quietly. “But one of the arrivals...I knew him. He was a good friend of Gabriel’s; they worked together at some point. It seems Gabriel gave him a message, right after the Reaping...” Cas held up a data-stick. “It’s for me, for when I returned home after the Games. But now...”

“He gave it to you here.” Dean frowned, not quite putting things together. “Cas, if you...if you want to look at it alone...”

“No. That’s why I’m here. I’d...I don’t want to be alone.”

_The party to was too decadent, too glittery, too crowded and loud. The garden outside the mayor’s mansion was wonderfully quiet and almost empty._

“ _What are you doing out here? I thought all you One Victors liked this kind of thing.”_

“ _What kind of ‘thing’ are you referring to?”_

“ _You know...parties, fancy shit, people. You’re all such fucking crowd pleasers.”_

“ _Oh. I usually prefer to be alone.”_

Cas stuck the data-stick into the side of the tablet and waited for the information to load. What popped up was a window for a video, and Cas hit play.

“ _Hey, cousin._ ” Gabriel Novak grinned against a background of what was clearly his candy shop’s storeroom. “ _This is_ so _cliche, but...if you’re watching this, I’m dead._ ”

Hearing a sharp intake of breath from Cas, Dean automatically reached out to cover the other man’s hand with his own.

“ _If I’m Reaped, which may or may not happen...I mean, my odds are what? One out of forty-something?...I’m not going to win. I suppose I could flirt and charm and seduce my way through, but honestly? I’m not going to even try. There will be younger tributes, more polite tributes...better Victors than me. Good luck to them._ ”

_Others_ _“better than him”?_ _Didn’t he say something like that to Sam and Charlie?_

“ _Here’s the thing, Cassie. I really fucking hate the Capitol. Like, I hate it so much that if they know some of the things I’ve done to undermine it, my name’s definitely on every single one of those slips of paper in that one bowl._ _For instance...your twin brother._ ”

Cas stiffened and pulled his hand from Dean’s, and the other man abruptly remembered the one time Cas had really told him about James Novak, sometime during that night after Gabriel’s death by Lucifer’s sword.

_“James_ _was being trained as a Career, too, but he hated it. He was no good, was never going to be allowed to volunteer...Our parents forced him into it, like they forced me and her parents forced the girl Jimmy fell in love with. They were children, Dean, and they made mistakes. They were barely sixteen...”_

Gabriel-in-the-video sighed heavily before he went on. “ _After Jimmy got his girl knocked up and expelled from Career school, he came to me for help. I had...connections, which I can’t discuss in case this video falls into enemy hands...suffice to say, I found a way to get him and Amelia out. But he didn’t show...We knew the Peacekeepers must’ve gotten to him, but I made Amelia leave anyway. I know it looks like she just got disposed of in the shadows, but...Cas, she made it out, I promise. And she was tough...I bet that kid made it, too._ ”

They’d shot James Novak behind District One’s Career academy in front of the entire student body, and though it was never made public for obvious reasons, Jimmy’s twin brother had been forced to volunteer two years earlier than he would’ve otherwise.

“ _So there’s hope there, little cousin. But listen to me.._.” Gabriel’s expression had gone from amused to somber during the course of the video, and now it went somewhere darker. “I _don’t want you to put yourself in unnecessary danger, Castiel..._ _as girly as it sounds, I care about you too much..._ _but things are changing. And if you get a chance...give ‘em hell._ ” With a wink and another grin, Gabriel reached for something off-screen, and the video ended.

Letting out a shuddering sigh, Cas set aside the tablet and covered his face with his hands, not moving for a very long time. Meanwhile, Dean stared blankly at the floor and wondered how Gabriel Novak, of all people, had gotten through to him.

“ _If you get a chance...give ‘em hell.”_

Bobby and Jody had been conspiring with rebels during the Seventy-Fifth Games and maybe even before. Other Victors, like Crowley, had done the same. Most of the districts were rebelling, resisting the rule of the Capitol, and the other districts might very well follow.

There might not be any alcohol available, but there was a war going on.

_That might be enough._

* * *

The President of District Thirteen was a beautiful woman, in the same way that a marble statue could be called beautiful.Her wavy brown hair fell perfectly to her shoulders, as unmoving as her expression. Other than that hair, she was more or less colorless, just like her uniform which was identical to those worn by everyone else in the district. Her voice remained toneless, though her gaze was sharp and made Dean feel like he was doing something wrong by being in the same room with her.

“Mr. Winchester, Mr. Novak. You asked to meet with me?”

The morning after watching Gabriel’s message, Dean and Cas had made their way to the Command Center and asked to see President Amara Odon. She was there and willing to see them, in an apparently non-urgent meeting including some advisers, multiple military officers, "Chuck" the former Gamemaker, and John Winchester.

_So he’s kind of important in the government here. Go figure. I guess he_ was _working for Thirteen long before he up and left..._

While Dean was still considering whether or not to ask if his so-called father couldleave the room, Cas started talking. “We...Dean and I...would like to be of help to the revolution.”

“More specifically,” Dean said, “we’d like to fight.”

John’s jaw visibly clenched. Dean told himself not to look that direction again. 

The president raised her eyebrows. “You’re both fighters, I’ll admit. But neither of you have formal training.”

“Then train us,” Cas said. “It seems to me that this rebellion needs all the soldiers it can get, and other Victors are already on the battlefield.”

Vaguely wondering if he should know which ones, Dean almost missed her reply. “Of course. That will not be a problem. Thank you for volunteering. We like to give a choice, when possible.”

“If I may, Amara,” Chuck said, and she gave him a curt nod. He looked to the Victors. “We have to ask this of everyone, but...are you sure? You’re not Thirteens...you weren’t raised to be soldiers, not like this. Are you certain...”

“We’re certain,” Dean said harshly. “The Capitol’s killed too many already. They caused the death of Cas’s cousin, his only real family.” _Lucifer was demented, but he was their puppet, too._  Hatred stirring inside him Dean added, “They  _murdered my brother_. We’re sure about this. Just tell us where to go.”

_We'll give them hell._


	3. Out Of Control

He could tell from the moment he opened his eyes that it was going to be a bad day.

The slivers of light shining through the worn window shutters sent daggers of pain through his skull, and his vision wouldn’t focus through it. The cracks on the dust-toned walls seemed to skitter around, turning his stomach. He rolled over on the ancient mattress, gagging off of the side; nothing came up except a dribble of bile. He closed his eyes and waited for the reflex to fade, then moved back to the center of the too-small mattress, keeping his eyes shut tightly and curling up under the threadbare blanket.

_Please stop...It hurts..._ His throat burned, too much to even cry out for help. There was a jug of water, he remembered, on the left side of the bed, not too far from where he’d tried to vomit. But it was too far for him to reach now.

He moaned, and a million colors exploded behind his eyelids. He gave into unconsciousness again.

The light had changed when he drifted back into wakefulness, but the pain hadn’t. His entire head throbbed and he gagged again, and that turned into a hacking cough as he attempted to reach the water jug without opening his eyes all the way. Someone laughed, and he jerked back onto the bed. “No...” he rasped. “No...go away...”

The laughter only grew in volume, and he clamped his hands over his ears, trying to scream to drown out the noise. Nothing but a whimper came out. _Stop…It’s not real...not real…_

_What’s the matter, Sammy? Aw, are you scared of me?_

“Go away...no, no, no...” Even with his eyes shut he could see blood dripping off the walls, see the shadowed figure laughing at him, at his _weakness_ …

“Sam?”

He recoiled, then realized that this voice wasn’t the other voice. This one was higher, gentler, the accent odd and muddled. But this was a good voice, a comforting voice.

“Bad day?”

The laughter receded, and he nodded, eyes still closed. He opened them a tiny bit, so the owner of the good voice could help him drink some water, then he slipped back into sleep again, only this time it was full of loud screams and roaring water and _falling_.

He woke up to find the cracks flitting about again, and he wanted to cry.

_It’ll keep happening...This, over and over and over again...I always come back to this…_

_Because you’re broken, Sam. You should’ve died in the desert._

_I should’ve…_

* * *

On bad days, Sam hurt all over, couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t even take care of himself, and he hated it.

On good days, he hurt all over, could take care of himself, and could think semi-clearly most of the time. He sometimes hated that, too.

_I suppose I should consider myself lucky_ , he thought as he heaved himself onto the wide shelf of rock about a hundred yards from the house, gritting his teeth and remaining on his hands and knees until he caught his breath. _I can’t even remember anything after the fall, and the water…_

Ash had hypothesized that the Arena must have had a “plumbing system” around the base to control flow and prevent flooding of the engineered rivers within, and when... _whatever_ had happened, Sam had been “flushed out” with the excess water.

_Being “flushed” is about as fun as it sounds_. Maneuvering himself into a sitting position, Sam looked out over the cliff-riddled landscape, the ramshackle two-story house, and the patches of green vegetation lining the riverbank. The “farm” existed by the river that ran through a stretch of flat land between massive, red-brown canyon walls, often mottled with the shadows of passing clouds. Most of the cliffs were steep, but in the direction Sam had his back to, there was a more gradual incline with a well-worn path that led to the plateau above.

Downriver, he heard Cesar calling to Jesse, saying something about “the damn sheep” while the dog barked excitedly. There were only about a dozen sheep in the flock, but that, and a few hardy crops in the garden and along the river, was about as much as this bit of land could support, or so Sam had been told.

_I’m pretty fucking useless_ _at this kind of life_ _, especially like this._ His fractured fingers, wrist, and ankle were healing nicely considering the lack of advanced medical facilities in the arena, the gashes from Lucifer’s sword were now pinkish-red scars, and the pounding his head had taken on the way out of the Arena hadn’t taken all of his intelligence from him. But he was weak, and fragile, and couldn’t go more than a couple days without having a meltdown and spending an entire day or several alone in a room, wrestling with nausea and nameless panic and things that weren’t really there.

He’d been here, somewhere between the borders of District Five, District Two, and District Ten, for around eleven weeks, living with one of what he had learned where many groups of Outsiders, or people living in the gaps between districts and along the edges of Panem. People weren’t supposed to leave their districts or the nation, period, but if they managed to escape and weren’t important or dangerous enough to pursue, they were often left alone to eke out a living on the lands no one wanted when Panem was formed. Some people had always lived on the outside, though those tended to be more “savage and nasty”, as Eileen put it.

_They’re not supposed to exist, but they do...and not much else._

It was strange, being technically outside the borders of Panem. It was like nothing and no one he knew inside even existed anymore, and if they did, if they continued to exist despite recent events...it almost didn’t matter.

_How would anyone know?_

This farm belonged to Eileen Leahy, whose parents had been runaways from District Five. They had both been killed by escaped Capitol mutts, and their infant daughter had been rescued and raised by the former owner of this farm, once a Five herself. After her guardian’s passing a few years ago, Eileen had accumulated her own small group of people. Two of them, plus Eileen herself, had found Sam among the canyons, close enough to dead for vultures to take interest. He hadn’t truly woken up for nearly three weeks.

_Maybe I shouldn’t have._

The sound of someone scrambling up onto the roughly four-foot high rock brought him out of his wandering thoughts. A skinny, tanned girl of about fifteen years of age joined him on the flat top of the rock, brushing strands of lank dark hair out of her face. “Hi.”

“Hey, Magda.” He almost managed a smile. “What brings you out here?”

“Eileen wanted me to check on you. She thinks you might wander off alone one of these days.”

“She said that?”

“She didn’t have to.”

Sam rubbed his hand over his mouth. “Where would I go? I don’t know this area.”

“You’d go nowhere, and that’s the problem.” Magda fixed one of her unblinking gazes on him.

“Would that really be such a bad thing?” He didn’t realize he’d said it out loud until Magda’s gaze somehow intensified. “Damn it, Magda, I’m not planning to...do anything...”

“Jesse wanted to tie you down the other day. Cesar talked him out of it.”

“Which day was that?” _One of the bad ones, for sure, but there’s so many of those..._

“The day you tried to rip your own eyeballs out.”

Sam curled in on himself when he remembered. _Lucifer, blood-stained and grinning, with Alex and Bobby and Jody and Dean dead at his feet, yet all telling him with lifeless mouths that he should die, too…_ The memory sucked him in, turning the desert view into a dusty room filled with ghosts.

Magda was saying something, shaking him by the shoulder, but what caught Sam’s attention and snapped him out of his daze was a high-pitched shriek from the house. They exchanged wide-eyed glances and slid off the rock in a flurry of dust and limbs; only one person in their alliance could scream that high.

_Not alliance, group_ , the back of Sam's mind hissed at him as he tried to keep up with Magda. _This is not the Arena._

Their pace slowed as they approached and heard a whoop inside the house, coming from a very different person than the one who had screamed. “Shit, _he_ probably scared her with some of his tech!” Magda said loudly as Cesar and Jesse arrived panting with Bones the mostly-golden dog at their heels.

The two burly men looked at each other in exasperation. “Typical,” Jesse said, and Cesar snorted. Magda rolled her eyes.

Sam followed the other three people into the house, trying not to replay the shriek in his head, because doing that could so easily lead to replaying other screams, and from there, his “good day” could become a bad one in seconds. The flashback earlier had been bad enough.

Inside the house, off of the kitchen/living room, was a room no one ever entered unless invited. It was a narrow room, filled with old rags, other assorted trash, and likely every piece of half-decent tech in a twenty-mile or so radius. Currently, the door to said room was wide open, and inside stood Eileen, her dark hair tied up with a strip of cloth. Next to her, seated by some kind of technological contraption Sam thought looked like it’d been cobbled together from a thousand other pieces of tech, was the one and only weird-haired, obsessed-with-tech-like-a-Three-despite-talking-like-a-Seven, Ash.

Seeming to sense the presence of more people, Eileen turned and signed, _Come here; Ash has something._

They did as instructed. “Ash has many things, and we don’t want to see most of them,” Cesar muttered; Jesse and Magda chuckled.

“Heard that!” Ash called cheerfully, turning to face them all with a broad grin. “Guess what?”

“You scared the crap out of Claire again?” Magda said. “Where is she, anyway?”

Eileen, who was facing the teenager and reading her lips, answered out loud. “I think she’s the bedroom. Ash threw something in excitement, and she’s sulking because he scared her.”

“I’ll apologize, I promise. But...I think can get a clear signal! For the first time in two freaking years...”

Sam stiffened. Over the years, Ash had been one of the Outsiders who worked with old, smuggled, and improvised tech to “eavesdrop” on the goings-on in Panem as much as possible. For that reason, the name “Winchester” had been recognized by Eileen’s group when Sam had been lucid enough to give it. But, because their radio had broken down a couple years back and Ash hadn’t found the parts to maybe repair in until recently, the Quarter Quell twist and everything else of note within Panem hadn’t been known to the group on the farm. _News from inside Panem...maybe about the Arena...though that was outside of it, right, somewhere miles from here..._

“Hang on a second...” Ash fiddled with some knobs as Magda took up a position by the radio, presumably to sign whatever might come through to Eileen. At first, “whatever” was just static, then, gradually, a voice emerged in bits and pieces.

“... _In this difficult time...patience...We will prevail..._ ”

“President Dick Roman,” Sam said, the memory of that same voice reading out what amounted to Sam’s death sentence rising to the surface.

“Probably some mandatory speech,” Cesar said, then Ash hushed them all.

For a few minutes, the voice came through uninterrupted. “... _together, we can and will stop this absurd threat in all its forms. With that in mind, here is the list of Victors hereby confirmed to be traitors to Panem and enemies of the Capitol: Castiel Novak, District One. Lisa_ _Braeden, District Four. Net Everett, District Four..._ ”

The list went on, featuring familiar names from almost every district, such as Fergus MacLeod, Ellen Harvelle, Rufus Turner, and…

“ _Robert Singer, Jody Mills, and Dean Winchester, District Nine_.”

Something snapped in Sam’s chest, and tears were running down his face even before the radio cut out to the sound of Ash cursing.

“Sam?” Eileen looked up at him with concern, reaching out but not quite touching him. Behind her, Jesse and Cesar were talking rapid-fire with Ash, and a diminutive figure with messy blonde hair had found her way from the next room into Magda’s arms.

“He’s alive.” Wiping his eyes roughly, Sam choked out, “I wasn’t...wasn’t sure before. But if he’s being called out as an enemy of the Capitol...”

_My brother’s alive._

In Sam’s current muddled state and bare existence _outside_ , just knowing that somewhere _inside_ , his brother was still breathing, still fighting...that counted as a win.


	4. Run Like Hell

_(One week earlier...)_

“I feel like I just went ten rounds with a Capitol wrestler,” Dean groaned as he gingerly settled on the bench between Cas and Jody. They and the two other people at the cafeteria table spared him a glance as he added, “Though last week it felt like fifty.”

“Basic military training is _maybe_ not too much for you, then?” On the other side of the table, Crowley grimaced at his water glass; he was suffering due to the no-alcohol rule, too. “Just be grateful they’ll let you outside at all.”

A lot of Thirteen’s training of soldiers took place in the underground bunkers, but some of it, mostly vigorous physical exercises, was above ground. Otherwise, trips to the surface in Thirteen were rare.

“Feeling left out, Crowley?” Dean grinned, then sighed as he looked down at the assortment of grayish food on his plate. _I feel sorry for anyone who had to grow up eating this crap._

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to march into battle and go down in a blaze of glory. But just because I am not as young as you and your precious Cas does not mean I am not capable of doing something other than sit around down here.”

“Well, you’re not much of any kind of soldiers, even if you did shoot a man,” Rowena said, looking down at her stew as if the lumpy mess could tell her the future. “The Thirteens might be concerned.”

“Yes, and these gray insects took my revolver away!”

“ _Fergus_ , you knew you couldn’t just carry a weapon around like that!”

“But it was a _collectible_ , Mother!”

Dean considered using his spoon to catapult a chunk of potato at the whining Victor from Five; Jody seemed to read his mind and shook her head at him. Rolling his eyes, he redirected the spoonful of vegetable to his mouth. Around it, he asked, “Where’s Bobby?”

“On his way, I think. He wanted to stop and check on Ellen.”

Nodding, Dean chewed his food without tasting it. When the Seventy-Fifth Games had ended, Ellen’s daughter Jo had been picked up by the Capitol and remained their prisoner, even though she’d had nothing to do with the rebel plot. No one was sure if she was alive or dead, and on top of it all, Ellen had come down with some kind of virus a week back and was still partially quarantined in the hospital. Despite everything, or maybe because of it, Ellen had said that once she had recovered, she wanted to go to her district and aid the rebellion there.

_They might use Jo against her, though, assuming she’s still alive._

The Capitol had killed people and taken several prisoners after the explosive end of the Games, many of them close to the tributes. Linda Tran had died giving other Victors including Dean time to escape, Nine’s stylists and prep teams had been executed, and several Victors such as Meg Masters remained unaccounted for, over two months later. To be fair, President Roman and others in the government were trying to suppress the problem, not even acknowledging a full “revolution” and calling it nothing more than “rabbles causing unrest”.

_Probably should’ve reconsidered that when they started firebombing certain neighborhoods in some districts…_

Billie, District Nine’s most recent tribute escort, was dead, too. Apparently, she’d attempted to stop Bobby and Jody from leaving the Training Center or at least talk them out of it, and Cas had shown up, panicked, and killed her with the three-edged dagger he’d gotten to keep from his Games. As someone who had liked Billie a lot more than any other tribute escort he’d encountered, Dean was still unsure how to feel about it. Hell, he hadn’t even _known_ about it until Gabriel’s message had helped him decide to fight with the rebels a couple weeks ago. Before that, he hadn’t cared enough to find out.

The cafeteria filled, the dinnertime crowd grew noisier around them, and while Crowley, Rowena, and Cas got into a discussion about underground politics and Thirteen’s worst rules, Jody leaned closer to Dean and said, “I had a chat with your father this morning.”

“Yeah?” Dean shoved another spoonful of stew into his mouth. “What did he want?”

“He wants to talk to you, and Bobby wasn’t willing to hear him out, so I...”

“I’ve got nothing to say to John.” _Haven’t since I got here and saw him standing in my hospital room._

“He wants to explain...”

“He doesn’t have anything to explain. He kept ditching me and Sam to sneak around for the rebels, at some point he shacked up with a Thirteen, and eventually he decided it was time to split and left Nine for good.”

Jody’s expression would’ve hurt less if it was less... _disappointed_. “There’s more to it than that, Dean. Give him a chance.”

 _There might be more to it, but I don’t need that shit right now._ What he needed was to finish basic training, get out into the war proper, and stay angry. Talking about his abandonment issues and working through _feelings_ wouldn’t help him bring the Capitol down.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed red hair. _There goes the undercover agent_ , he thought, giving her a sideways look as she sat down alone at a nearby table. She’d been the only tribute rescued by the rebels, and she wasn’t even supposed to be in the Arena. She wasn’t even from a district.

Celeste Middleton, aka Charlie Bradbury, was from the Capitol, and had fled from there years ago, making her way to District Thirteen. She’d volunteered to be passed off as a viable tribute in the Seventy-Fifth Games, undergoing surgical procedures in order to be disguised. Under different circumstances, Dean supposed he’d have been impressed, or something like that.

_But she’s here, and he isn’t._

Bobby arrived, bringing with him complaints about how many time Chuck kept cornering him and trying to discuss the making of televised propaganda videos, or “propos”, featuring the Victors residing in Thirteen. “I told him that yeah, sure, most of us would be happy to help out, but I’m not the boss of anyone, and if he wants to discuss mastermind stuff, he should ask you, Crowley.”

“You’re not wrong; I believe I do have more of the required...finesse than you. But I think I make him nervous.”

“I think Crowley makes everyone nervous,” Cas muttered in Dean’s ear. “When he knows how to.”

“Not you, though?”

Cas shrugged. “I’m smart enough not to show it.”

Smiling faintly, Dean bumped the other’s man’s shoulder with his own and said, “Never change, Cas.”

The two of them been assigned a single, new compartment the same day they started training. There were two beds, stacked on top of each other, but most nights they still shared one. With other things to channel their anger and grief into, moments of...enjoyment...were becoming more common between the two of them. Later that night, for instance.

“Dean, I do not believe what we just did is what District Thirteen’s command have in mind when they stress the importance of conserving shower water.”

“Come on, one or two of them must’ve considered that, uh, strategy.” Dean flopped down under the covers and patted the empty patch of mattress. “Admit it, you enjoyed that.”

“It _was_ most pleasurable, but...” Cas got into bed next to Dean. “I’m almost certain we were overheard. Those are public showers, Dean.”

“Yeah, but we weren’t _that_ loud. You should’ve heard the couple I overheard last week.” The narrowness of the bed made cuddling of a sort inevitable, which Dean didn’t mind. Not that he’d ever admit that out loud. “Did you hear about Six?” Another district had openly joined the rebellion that day.

“I heard.” A bunker-wide signal sounded, and the lights went out as they did every night. Somewhere in the dark, Cas added, “I think they’ll send us out soon. The districts need all the help they can get.”

“We’ve worked hard enough in training.” The last few weeks had been a blur of learning orders, combat training, both in firearms and hand-to-hand, and those damned long runs and endless cycles of other strength-building exercises. As much as he complained about soreness, which was decreasing day by day, Dean didn’t mind all the hard work. _Except…_

“I overheard you and Jody at dinner, when you were talking about your father.”

Letting out a heavy sigh, Dean finished his earlier thought. _I don’t mind all the training, except when the orders sound like what Dad used to bark at me._

Cas continued, “I agree that you should talk to him.”

“Why would I need to? Would you talk to your parents now?”

“I know my parents’ excuses, their lies, their truths. I came to understand them and their choices long ago. I don’t think you ever managed the same with your father.”

Dean snorted and rolled over, putting his back to Cas. “Yeah, well, it’s not like he ever gave me much of a chance.”

“He’s giving you a chance now.” Pause. “Dean, you can be angry at him for his past actions. I cannot blame you for that. But think of it this way; he did just lose both of your brothers.”

 _Right, my “brothers”._ The Capitol had Adam Milligan-Winchester, and just like with Jo, there had been no news about him since the Arena. Knowing the Capitol, it was probably kinder to hope that he was dead. _Then there’s Sam...my real brother…_ Though thinking that did seem a bit harsh on a person who had volunteered to go into a freaking Hunger Games for a greater purpose. Neither Adam nor his parents really deserved what had happened to him.

However, in Dean’s mind, John had lost him and Sammy already, when he left them all those years ago. So what if he’d watched Sam fall like the rest of the nation? _He shouldn’t be claiming family rights to grief, not with Sam. He doesn’t deserve a chance to explain, especially if…_

“Dean?” Cas moved closer, hand brushing against Dean’s side.

Fumbling around, Dean caught Cas’s hand and interlaced their fingers. “Sorry, Cas. I’m not mad at you. Just...I’ve had a decade to stew in how many ways my dad failed me, okay?”

“I understand.” A huff of warm air hit Dean’s neck. “Goodnight, Dean.”

“’Night, Cas.”

* * *

 Castiel, as it turned out, was right. Four days later, a unit of Thirteen soldiers including Dean and Cas were given their marching orders. Not that there was much actual marching involved; they rode hovercrafts to District Eight.

“What are you doing here, Bobby?” Dean asked when the older man boarded the same hovercraft as him and Cas. “And what’s with all the cameras?” A number of people decked out with clipboards, tablets, and giant, insect-like camera packs swarmed in, milling around and jabbering long after the soldiers had sat down.

“They’re hoping for propo footage, and Chuck said I should ‘supervise’ your boys.” Bobby found a seat near Cas and Dean and sat down with a grunt. “I’ll be staying on the hovercraft, thank you very much. Maybe if I were twenty years younger...I think I’ll sit this one out a radio call away.”

“Great, so we escape the Capitol, but not the cameras,” Dean grumbled. _At least we’re in military uniforms rather than Thirteen civilian clothes._ The uniforms verged on bulky, but were plain black and definitely an improvement in appearance. _Plus the armor, however little, might come in handy…_

Yet there was disappointingly few bullets flying when the hovercrafts dropped them off. “This won’t be a long mission,” Major Jefferson said, her tone clipped. “We’re assisting Eight’s rebels in a sweep of the district center and making our own assessment of the current conditions for President Odon.”

During Dean’s Victory Tour, he’d visited District Eight, and he’d seen other footage of the place over the years. It had always struck him as ugly, with sooty air and rows of cramped apartment buildings and factories.

Today, entire strips of those hideous buildings lay in heaps of charred rubble. The air smelled of burning things, and the light filtering down was gray, a bit too much like in the Arena of the Sixty-Sixth Games. Bombers and Peacekeepers had withdrawn, leaving a broken district center behind.

Eight’s rebels looked about as ragged as the town itself, and their thirty-ish leader, Aaron Patel, was indistinguishable from the rest except for the deference the others gave him. On his instruction, most of the soldiers from Thirteen followed his second-in-command off to do the security sweep; Major Jefferson, Dean, Cas, the camera contingent, and a few others joined Patel in a general inspection. “We’ve taken the district, more or less,” Patel said, leading the way through the wreckage of a factory. “But we don’t know if that’ll last and the cost’s been high, both for soldiers and civilians.”

He showed them around the ruined Justice Building and a warehouse functioning as a hospital, which was packed to the edges with hundreds of people, mostly civilians, and reeked of blood and disease and death. Dean, overwhelmed by nausea, made some excuse and stumbled out within a couple minutes. Cas followed him out. “Crowding that many people together is not a good idea."

“Where else are they going to put them?” Dean pointed out, still breathing through his mouth. _There’s a lot of corpses out here…_ While they waited for their commanding officer, Dean checked over his military-grade automatic rifle and his handgun for something to do. _All in order._ Then he used the radio clipped to his belt to make a probably-unauthorized call to Bobby, who told him to “shut up and pay attention to your damn surroundings, you idjit”.

As Jefferson and the others emerged and they went to check on the district’s meager defenses, Patel said, “I was told to expect some Victors, but I’m surprised to see Novak. I heard rumors that most of the Ones are aligning themselves with the Capitol.”

“They are,” Cas replied. “But I am not most of One’s Victors.”

“So I see.” Patel glanced at Dean. “Winchester, on the other hand...I always thought you could be a hothead.”

Before Dean could answer, a crackling siren split the air.

“Capitol airstrike!” Patel shouted.

Both he and Jefferson started shouting orders, and Dean was half-certain that one of those orders involved “getting the Victors off the street”, but he was already running with Cas, following a group of Eight rebels headed for the rooftops. In the distance, multiple rows of hovercrafts uncloaked and sped towards the remains of the district.

On the roof of some low concrete structure, Dean felt the falling bombs detonating some distance away and shaking the building under his feet. He and Cas exchanged looks and followed the lead of the rebels surrounding them and began rapid rifle fire at the wave of low-flying aircraft.

“Random shots are no good, Dean!” Cas bellowed over the sound of explosions and constant gunfire. “Try to actually aim at them!”

“What do you think I’m doing, you jackass?” Dean roared in return. “They’re moving too damn fast!”

A minute later, however, he was letting out roar of victory as he got the hang of aiming at moving objects and he and Cas brought down a hovercraft together. His heart pounded as he kept shooting, adrenaline pumping through his veins as more hovercrafts fell to the rebel guns, crashing to earth in flames, and for the first time in longer than Dean could remember, he was so fucking awake he felt _amazing_.

Cas even seemed exhilarated as the few remaining hovercrafts vanished over the horizon and the group of rebels left the rooftop, exhausted but elated. _We took out, what? Half of them? Two-thirds? Considering this whole air raid thing was unexpected, and all we have are regular guns…We did damn good. Much better than sitting around all useless in Thirteen._

The triumphant feeling lasted until they rounded a collapsed factory chimney and saw the hospital and the desperate crowd surrounding it.

“Oh, no,” Cas said, gripping Dean’s arm, and Dean swore helplessly.

Everyone was helpless as the hospital burned.

People were shouting, confusedly. "... _no survivors...no warning...message from the president_..." 

Dean looked around, found the cameras, pulled away from Cas. 

"Dean, what are you..." 

"Giving the Capitol a little hell."


	5. Basket Case

The Outsiders in this part of the desert didn’t usually have to fear long winters, or large natural predators, or Capitol oppression, at least most of the time. What they did have to fear was drought and floods.

Even with their homes and fields clustered along the banks of rivers, lack of rain and extreme heat could still kill an entire year’s harvest. And if the autumn rains fell too heavily, those same rivers that might save people in the summer could destroy everything in their path.

Sam heard the unexpected rain on a bad night when he hurt all over and couldn’t move without triggering a pounding in his head to rival the pounding on the roof. For a while, he thought he was back in the cave on the last night of the Games, except instead of Charlie with him it was Lucifer and he couldn’t stop whimpering through the pain.

He managed to fall asleep just before dawn, so the roar of the river and panic of the other residents came only as a muffled sounds in a nightmare. When he woke up, still tired and aching but clearheaded, it was to find the farm in chaos.

Seeing a chance to be useful, Sam pitched in without being asked when it came to cleanup and salvage. The flash flood had missed the house and sheds only to hit lower fields, carrying away five sheep and what was supposed to be the last of this year’s harvest. This, obviously, didn’t bode well for anyone.

“Everyone else we know well lives in canyons, too,” Eileen said. The relatively small number of people in the area were somewhat spread out to make the best of limited resources, but they generally kept in contact for the purposes of trade, information, and defense against roving mutt packs and/or less peaceful Outsiders. Therefore, Eileen’s concern was palpable when she said, “So much damage...it might be widespread.”

To determine if that was the case, Cesar took one of the ancient rifles and his aging mare, the only form of transportation they had other than walking, and rode out to check on their nearest neighbors. Jesse and Bones took up residence on the front step and barely moved until Cesar returned the next evening.

Sam spent that time helping out where he could and spending a lot of time following Claire and Magda around, the latter of whom had started teaching him sign language. Eileen had taught her, but Sam was reluctant to bother the older woman when she always had so much on her mind. _I don’t want to be any more of a burden._

Ash had managed to catch a few more radio broadcasts over the last week, but none had mentioned Dean. Whatever peace Sam had gotten from having some confirmation of his brother’s survival kept slipping away.

What they had learned, however, was that a full-on war was raging inside Panem’s borders, with eight or more out of twelve districts rebelling with the aid of a not-so-dead District Thirteen. Putting two and two together, the general consensus was that the partial destruction of the Seventy-Fifth Arena had been some kind of rebel plot for the purpose of kick-starting a revolution.

“Charlie from Three and Adam from Six were in on it, maybe others, too,” Sam said as he and the girls watched the remaining sheep grazing on scraggly grasses among strips of red-brown mud.

“And you helped them.” Magda, braiding Claire’s hair with thin, calloused fingers, paused long enough to give him a look. “But you didn’t know anything about wrecking the Arena.”

“No, but Charlie was my ally, and...and I _think_ Adam asked me to help.” Those last moments in the Arena remained blurry and confused in Sam’s head. “Either way, I’d chose them over Lucifer any time.” Sam recalled that Cesar had mentioned the possibility that Lucifer had survived, too, and he shuddered. _I can’t even think about that...if he came after me for real…_

Having the monster from Two lurking at the edge of his vision was already more than enough.

“You’re District Nine, right?” Claire, her braids finished, scooted around on her rock seat to face him and Magda.

“Yes, I am.”

“My mom told me we’re District One.” The nine-year-old tilted her head. “Have you ever been there?”

“No, but my brother has.”

“Almost no one visits different districts in Panem, silly,” Magda said. Claire shrugged and scampered off to play with Bones, who had apparently given the front-step vigil a rest. Sighing, Magda said, “Her mom left Panem somewhere way up north, but worked her way south. Claire was born outside, and then her mom died not long after they got here.”

“Oh. I didn’t know.” Sam watched the dirt-stained, rag-wearing girl and tried to imagine her as a child born into a district where almost no one went hungry on a regular basis.  _I wonder why her mother left._  “What about you? I mean, you’ve told me you’re from Two, but...”

“Ran away from my parents after my brother died in an accident.” Magda seemed to shrink into herself for a moment. “They blamed me. They blamed me for everything.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? Not your fault, is it?”

Bones and Claire moved closer, both tousled and panting, and the dog stuck his head under Sam’s hand. Petting him absentmindedly, Sam thought about the people he was living with and what he knew about them. _Eileen’s family was from Five, Magda’s a Two, Claire’s mom was a One, Ash is a Seven, Cesar’s from Ten and I think Jesse’s from Eight...not sure, I should ask him…Eileen and Claire were born out here or as good as, Cesar left because he was accused of stealing, Jesse’s brother was killed by Peacekeepers and he ran, Magda fled from her parents, God knows why Ash left his home..._ Except for the occasional Victor gathering caught on television, Sam had never seen anything like this mix of districts in one place.

_The Capitol wouldn’t allow it._

Cesar arrived back in time for dinner, and over food that was bland and barely enough to fill seven stomachs, he confirmed that every other nearby settlement, about dozen in all, had suffered losses, some more than others. “...Asa’s cousin went down the river with their sheep, and the Santos family lost their house.”

“We were lucky,” Jesse said, and Cesar nodded wearily.

Eileen stood up and started to collect dishes; Sam signed “thank you” when she took his plate, and she half-smiled and corrected his signing with her free hand. He laughed a little and mentally promised to do better than he had been in the future, and not just with his sign language. _I’m recovering well physically, and I can’t stay on here as a burden, especially not now. I’ll keep it together._

He managed one more decent day before the cracks on the walls started jerking around like puppet strings and Lucifer returned to smirking in the corner. Remaining in his room, Sam lay in a fetal position, clutching the battered amulet that had someone survived the end of the Arena with him and trying to hang on to some shred of his sanity.

In between the snake-like whispers of his worthlessness and the ghostly-yet-painful memory-sensation of roaring water slamming him under over and over again, Sam recalled days of finding his brother passed out in his own vomit and nights of hearing him crying out in his sleep, and wondered if Dean had ever felt like the world was spinning too fast to stand, like he was forever sliding off a terrifying precipice into something too horrible to comprehend.

_But even he was never this bad. He didn’t constantly see people that aren’t there._

The hallucinations eventually shifted into nightmares as he slept, only to morph into twisted memories when he woke to begin it all over again.

_I'm so tired of this..._

* * *

 

“ _I’ll never leave you. It’s my job to take care of you, remember?”_

_It shouldn’t have been your job. You should’ve had a childhood, too._

“ _Shut up, bitch.”_

_Right back at you, jerk._

“ _It’s not going to be you.”_

_It was never going to be me, until it was._

“ _I’m winning this for you.”_

_I just wanted you to come back alive._

“ _Everything’s going to be okay now, Sammy. I’m back, and you’re safe.”_

_No one’s ever safe, anywhere._

“ _Don’t you dare leave me, Sam! I won’t make it if you leave!”_

_I hate that I never did leave. And I’m sorry that I ever tried._

“ _See ya, Sammy.”_

_I’m so sorry, Dean…_

Gradually awakening somewhat sane again, Sam realized that he wanted to see his brother again. Well, there were a lot of people he wanted to see again, preferably alive, but his brother was at the top of the list. _Somewhere inside Panem, he’s fighting, pissing off the Capitol somehow, and I should be there with him..._ Winchesters were supposed to stick together, weren’t they?

Rubbing the small horned deity pendant between his fingers _,_ Sam allowed himself to imagine handing it back to Dean, saying, “Here, you probably want this back.”

_Like that’ll ever happen_ , a snide voice whispered, and he let out a frustrated growl. “Go away.”

“Um, I was just bringing you some soup. Honestly.”

Sam jerked upright, knocking his blanket to the floor. “Magda? Sorry, I wasn’t...wasn’t talking to you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Oh. Right. It’s okay.” She handed him the clay bowl and sat down cross-legged at the end of the bed as he ate a couple spoonfuls of the thin soup. “It’s around noon. You’ve been...out of it for a day and a half.”

“I know. I feel like the shittiest guest ever.”

“I think you are.”

He barked out a laugh, then stopped to wonder when he’d last let out any kind of laugh at all. “Yeah, thanks.”

_See, you’re nothing but a useless creature, a problem. You always have been._

Sam took a deep breath. _Maybe, but I’m not going to stay here and be one._

If people had ways of getting out of Panem, there had to be ways to get in. _Maybe I’m insane. Maybe I’ll always be useless for days at a time. But I have to go back. I have to do something._

When he explained this to Eileen later, she looked up at him worriedly and said, “Any way in or out is dangerous.”

“I know. But I...it’s something I have to do. Do you know anyone who could...”

“Maybe. We’ll have to wait for a little while, because of the flooding. No one has time or resources to spare.”

“I understand. Until then...I’ll help out with anything you need me to. As long as I’m not hallucinating...I owe you. All of you.”

She smiled faintly. “Yes, you do.”

Somehow that didn’t sting, and he managed to smile back.


	6. Out Of The Picture

A day or so after the mission in District Eight, President Roman and, by extension, the rest of the Capitol’s government, finally admitted to the public that there was a major problem worth more than scorn and a dropped bomb or two. The admission probably had something to do with the rebel propo that was aired throughout the districts, featuring a hospital full of innocent people going up in flames, two Victors shooting down Capitol hovercrafts...for all the annoyance, one had to admit the camera crew was damn good at the job...and one of said rifle-toting Victors looking straight into a camera and “telling it like it is”.

Coming from Dean, “telling it like it is” translated into “take a look around; the Capitol is evil and the president is a murdering bastard, so do yourselves a favor and fuck the status quo. Also: Dick Roman, go fuck yourself.” Dean had been shouting by the end.

Apparently, all this further translated into “genius”, or so Chuck said, and the propo was ready for airing mere hours after most of the mission squad returned to Thirteen. Bobby and Jody both scolded Dean and Cas for not obeying orders and risking themselves, but it seemed halfhearted.

_We did good, or at least close to it_ , Dean thought to himself as he, Cas, and several others watched the finished propo in the Command Center. _Even Amara looks pleased._ Plans for several other propos were already in the works, building off the _excellent_ reception of this one. _The head dick himself has released a list of “traitor Victors”, rebels are gaining ground in almost every district...If it weren’t for the hospital full of dead people...I’d say that mission was a real success._

When the president of Thirteen suggested a similar visit to District Nine, Dean said yes before she finished speaking. 

He was less than happy to see that the large group departing for District Nine a couple days later included Charlie Bradbury, seemingly assisting with the film tech, and John Winchester, who Dean first spotted in the aircraft hanger, saying goodbye to a blonde woman he recognized as soldier-turned-nurse Kate Milligan. _Adam’s mom, and Dad’s...something. Are they married?_ He told himself that he didn’t care and inserted himself into a conversation between Bobby, Jody, and Cas about the mission.

District Nine turned out to be less of a mess than District Eight, yet seeing it still hurt. Reports were that the harvest in some sectors had been destroyed. The central part of the main town, Justice Building included, still stood despite new soot stains and hundreds of bullet holes. A lot of the merchant and residential areas had suffered from fires, and the entire east end of the town, with its narrow streets and bedraggled tenements, had been leveled by Capitol bombers. Dean winced and cursed when he saw that. _We used to live there. Guess the “bad neighborhoods” are expendable to the Capitol._

Most of the Peacekeepers had already been routed from the main district, though some were reportedly holed up in some farm sector settlements to the north. Maybe due to the success, Nine’s rebels, or at least the large group gathered in the square when Thirteen’s hovercrafts landed, looked less desperate than those in Eight. Many of them cheered at the sight of their Victors. A bony, ungainly figure emerged from the crowd as Dean reached the end of the hovercraft ramp with Bobby, and the older man suddenly laughed out loud. “Garth, you idjit! Do you even know how to shoot that gun?”

The skinny man who used to do maintenance around Victor’s Village and go out for drinks with Bobby every other Saturday looked like he should’ve been crawling under the weight of his rifle alone, yet had a bounce in his step and a bright grin on his face. “I knew you guys weren’t dead even before the propo!” he crowed, hugging Bobby, Dean, and Jody in that order. “You were amazing, Dean, honestly. Just so you know, once the Arena went down, I pitched in and fought the good fight, just like you always said I should, Bobby!”

“When I said that, I didn’t mean it quite so literally,” Bobby muttered as Castiel became the next bewildered recipient of one of Garth’s famous hugs. “Wait, don’t tell me you’re _in charge_ , boy!”

It turned out that Garth was, more or less, in command of most of Nine’s rebels, on the merit of having been the first person who had climbed a figurative soapbox upon the destruction of the Arena and egged half the town into attacking any and all present Peacekeepers. Upon hearing the story in full, Bobby groaned and said, “How are you still alive, Garth?” while Jody and Dean laughed.

Despite the evidence of battle everywhere, the mood of the people seemed almost jubilant as the Victors and gun-and-camera-show went around the district, speaking with civilians and fighters they knew, and visiting two hospitals as well as multiple destroyed neighborhoods and grave sites. A lot of people were out and about, mostly helping with cleanup.

Bobby and Jody became involved in a serious strategy meeting with Garth and the other rebel leaders. Dean avoided that in favor of giving the Thirteen soldiers tasked with watching him and Cas a guided tour of the town. Everywhere, there were things to talk about, and every time, the cameras caught almost every gesture and word. For once, Dean didn’t feel totally uncomfortable. He was actually _glad_ that the cameras were there.

_Nine’s better off than Eight, but the Capitol still fucked this place up, and I want the whole damn country to know how much that pisses me off._

He gave a little speech to that effect while standing in front of the still-smoking remains of a tenement building that had not been cleaned out since its destruction a couple weeks previously. Dean imagined the twisted, burned bodies likely still inside and focused on turning his resulting horror and disgust into usable rage. _I’m getting pretty damn good at that._

Like in District Eight, Cas didn’t say much of anything in front of the cameras, but he stayed by Dean’s side constantly, a reassuring, grounding presence that Dean especially appreciated when they ended up on the street where the Winchesters had once lived. All that was left of the garage and apartment was a few charred posts rising from blackened rubble. According to Garth, the family that had taken over the garage after Dean’s Games hadn’t made it out when the bombs fell.

Something about seeing the utter destruction of the place, even if he hadn’t lived there in a long time drained the rage right out of Dean and left him feeling shaky. _That was our home. We stayed there longer than most places...that was the last place I lived before being a Victor…_

John was there, too, standing off to the side, gripping a rifle despite there being no current threat. Dean tried to not look at him.

“You said you used to live here?” Minerva, some ex-Capitol friend of Chuck’s who directed most of the propo filming, gave Dean a sympathetic look through eyes surrounded by swirling, vivid blue tattoos. “Would you like to say anything in particular?”

“Yeah, I...I, uh, knew the family who lived here after me and Sam. Not well, but they...they were nice.” Stomach churning, he managed to say, “They had a couple kids. Both under Reaping age. I heard they didn’t make it.”

He glanced back at the wreckage and found he couldn’t tear his eyes away or keep speaking. He heard Cas telling Minerva that they could stop filming, and then the man from one was again in his space. “Dean? Jody called; she and Bobby are headed to Victor’s Village. It seems it was mostly untouched by both sides. Do you…”

“Yeah.” Dean rubbed his hand over his face. “Yeah, let’s go there.”

A couple miles away from the town center, Victor’s Village, save for the lack of leaves on the ornamental trees lining the dozen separate yards, looked eerily similar to how it had looked months ago when its Victors had left it. Many of the formerly unused houses had been commandeered as shelters for townspeople whose homes were now destroyed. Three houses, however, had been left untouched, “by order of Garth.”

Jody and Bobby went straight into their respective homes, but Dean headed for the single-car garage next to his. As the door slid up, revealing the interior, he grinned and said, “Cas, I don't think you've met Baby.”

The car was fine, and while Cas looked on with amusement, Dean murmured a couple apologies to the vehicle before he reluctantly locked the garage behind him. “Damn, I wish I could take her with.”

“She will surely be waiting for you when you return, Dean,” Cas said. The _When this is all over_ went unspoken. “Now, is there anything you want from your house?”

Checking over the house didn’t take too long, even with Cas staying close enough to bump into him at every turn. Dean didn’t typically think of himself as a collector, but there were some things he wanted to keep close. The jagged-edged black blade from his Games for one, though he’d never been sure why he kept it. His car keys, “just in case.” The pictures of him, Sam, Bobby, and Jody that he kept in the kitchen. The faded photographs of his once-complete family that he kept in his bedroom.

Without lingering on any item, he shoved everything into a battered old duffle bag he found in a closet. With that done, he steeled himself and headed for the one upstairs door he’d been avoiding so far.

Sam’s room was ridiculously tidy, with the bed made and everything put away correctly. _Like he was putting his affairs in order_ , Dean thought as he stood frozen in the doorway for a solid minute or two. _He didn’t think he’d be coming back._ That, or he had just been acting as some kind of organization freak, per usual.

Stepping further into the room, Dean looked around at the full bookshelf, the clothes hung up neatly in the closet, the thin layer of dust coating everything. His gaze came to rest on the single framed photo on the bedside table, and his chest hitched when he recognized it.

“ _Let go of me!” Sam demanded, trying to writhe his way out of a headlock._

_Dean pretended he wasn’t struggling to hang onto his giant of a brother and replied, “Not a chance, Sammy!”_

“ _I’m freaking_ eighteen _, Dean! Don’t call me Sammy!”_

“ _Would you two stand still long enough for a picture?” Jody called. “Preferably one where you’re_ not _strangling each other! I’m not going to ask twice, boys!”_

“ _Yes, ma’am!” they shouted in unison, arranging themselves into a more acceptable side-hug position. Sam grinned, but his hair was literally standing on end, and Dean couldn’t stop laughing as the camera clicked._

Dean took the picture and sat down heavily on the bed. He didn’t look up even when he heard Cas’s footsteps in the room. “When Sam...when he graduated from the district school, I made him have a celebration...just a meal with Bobby and Jody and a lot of beer...It was fun. Jody made us stand for a photo..I didn’t actually know Sam kept a copy.”

He felt the bed dip next to him as Cas sat down. “You both look happy.”

“Yeah. I guess we were happy...as happy as you can get in Panem.” Dean’s eyes stung, and he shut them, only to have a blurry copy of the photograph swim in his mind’s eye. He drew a shuddering breath, and the full weight of _missing Sam_ came crashing down on him, crushing all his rebelliousness to dust. Tears leaked from behind his eyelids as he whispered, “Why’d he have to...”

He never finished his sentence, and Cas didn’t prompt him to, instead opting to take Dean’s hand and sit quietly for as long as necessary.

Before he left, Dean raided Sam’s closet for a couple shirts and a jacket.

They took the hovercrafts up north that afternoon, closer to the besieged Peacekeepers, and after a Nine’s three Victors gave a joint-effort, rousing speech to the rebel forces, Dean fell asleep in a tent next to Cas while wearing Sam’s coat. 

The next morning, as another farm sector was cleared of Capitol forces, Dean and Cas killed several Peacekeepers between them, aiming and hitting from a distance. It made Dean wonder if killing was always easier when you couldn’t see the faces of your victims. Seeing his father gunning down enemies with no expression made him wonder if being a killer ran in the family. Breaking the neck of the young, out-of-uniform-but-armed Peacekeeper who jumped out and tried to stab Cas after the battle was mostly over made him wonder what Sam had really thought, and would have thought now, about all the blood on Dean’s hands.

The cameras caught just about everything, the propo crew worked their magic, and by the time everyone got back to Thirteen the following day, District Three was in open rebellion and the Capitol was pulling troops from Twelve in order to protect districts One and Two.

A whole new round of propos began to be filmed and aired from several districts: Rufus and Ellen plotting and fighting with the rebels in Seven, Rowena and Crowley revealing all of the dirty secrets they’d learned over the years from Capitol elites, Missouri in Eleven speaking about lost tributes from years past and other innocent lives ruined by the Games and Capitol’s rule. The last type of message proved to be a serious motivator for many, so before long several Victors were participating in the “We Remember” propos. Cas even agreed to open up somewhat about his cousin Gabriel and his last message.

Dean refused to talk about his brother on camera for the time being... _I think yelling on the battlefield is more my thing..._ but he kept going to bed wrapped in Sam’s old clothes.


End file.
